All posts tagged ‘Hop’

Ken, Matt, John, and Russ chat about the “Hop” press junket and how to cook a perfect steak in a cooler. Enjoy!

Special thanks to our sponsor Maphook, the location-based social network for geeks!

GeekDad.com is the parenting blog at Wired.com, edited by Ken Denmead, Matt Blum, Jonathan Liu and Chris Anderson. It is a community of like-minded geeky parents writing about our experiences raising our kids in the digital age, and about our obsessions with technology, family-friendly projects, and pop-culture. The GeekDads podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of anything and everything that impacts us as geeks and parents.

Almost certainly, yes! Hopis a movie that features bunnies, chicks and an enormous Wonka-esque CGI candy factory — could it be any more clearly aimed at kids? It’s got jokes aplenty that kids will find hysterical, and not quite all of them are in the trailers. The actors do a great job interacting with the computer-animated characters, and the voice actors are terrific, making the whole thing very believable — it’s not hard at all to forget that E.B., the main bunny character, isn’t real.

2. Will I like it?

If you’re at all like me, you’ll enjoy it, though you won’t love it. I really didn’t expect to like it — I can’t stand the saccharine sweetness of so many kids’ holiday movies, but Hop had a refreshing (slight) edginess to it that made it more palatable. It has plenty of jokes that no kid is going to get, but that will make the adults they’re with laugh. From a sly (but totally benign) reference to a well-known Los Angeles residence to the appearance (and hysterical self-parody) of a celebrity most noted for TV shows in the ’80s and ’90s, it may provide you with a few things slightly tough to explain to your kids, but they’re amusing enough you won’t care.

3. It’s rated PG — anything I should be concerned about for my little kids?

Nah. There are a few tense moments, but nothing worse than you’ll find in any Disney film. I can understand being concerned upon hearing that Russell Brand does E.B.’s voice or that Chelsea Handler has a small part, but they both keep it clean. The PG rating is probably due to a few rude jokes, one of which (E.B. pooping jellybeans) is in the commercials and thus not going to surprise anyone.

4. When’s the best time for a bathroom break?

Hop lasts just over 90 minutes so, movie theater drink sizes being what they are these days, it’s entirely possible someone in your party will need to use the facilities partway through. The plot moves along fairly quickly, so there are no scenes that are completely extraneous, but I suggest going when Fred (the main human character, played by James Marsden) goes on a job interview. There’s plenty of funny stuff that happens there, but it does less to advance the plot than a lot of scenes around it, and its outcome is fairly predictable.

5. Do I need to sit through the end credits for a bonus scene?

There is a very short scene after the end credits that’s a callback to a joke earlier in the movie. It’s worth staying for if you can.

6. So, bottom-line it: What do you think of it?

It’s a fun film, though not much more than that. It’s not in danger of winning any Oscars for acting, screenwriting or directing, but would you really expect a holiday comedy film to be otherwise? It’s nice to see a funny, utterly areligious take on the Easter Bunny, considering that Santa films have been done and overdone. It could have used a bit more heart, a bit less obvious and abrupt an ending, and better lines for the amazing Hugh Laurie, who voices E.B.’s father (the current Easter Bunny) and Hank Azaria, who voices the amiable but dimwitted chick Phil and the villainous chick Carlos. Go to it expecting 90 minutes of escapism and I think you’ll enjoy it; go to it expecting real substance and you’ll be disappointed.

7. What toys should I expect my kids to ask for after they see it?

Well, I brought home a bunch of toys from the press junket I went on for the film, and my kids (a boy, 10 and a girl, 8) are most fond of the stuffed E.B.s with articulated ears. My daughter likes the pink beret, and I suspect will like it even more after she sees the film — the “pink berets” are a trio of female bunny ninjas/commandos who pursue E.B. and are pretty amusing. There are available, of course, plastic E.B.s that poop jellybeans. If you can accept that, the jellybeans aren’t bad.

It’s sort of amazing when you think about it, but there really has never been a mainstream kids’ movie about the Easter Bunny. When you consider how many movies there have been featuring Santa Claus, and the number of years Cadbury has been making commercials starring clucking rabbits, it really does make you wonder why this particular sector of the Holiday Movie genre has remained unexplored. Until now, of course.

I will freely admit that I didn’t have high hopes for Hop when I was invited to go on a press junket for the film. I mean, my favorite holiday film is The Nightmare Before Christmas, which has a slightly… different tone from most other holiday films. And Easter isn’t my holiday, though my wife and kids celebrate it — albeit not religiously. Despite Hop‘s casting of Russell Brand as the voice of the main bunny character, I was afraid the film would be cloyingly sweet, too preachy about its message, or both.

I needn’t have worried. I’ll provide more detailin a “10 Things Parents Should Know About Hop” post tomorrow to coincide with the movie’s premiere, but for now suffice it to say that Hop is funnier, better-acted and more flat-out charming than it has any right to be. But is it geeky?

And the answer to that is: Not particularly. I mean, it’s 2011, and movies that seamlessly integrate CGI characters and settings with real settings and actors are no longer cutting-edge technology. But the film does star James Marsden, aka Cyclops/Scott Summers in the X-Men films, so there is at least that connection. And, as I found out at the roundtable discussion with him at the junket, Brand has a somewhat geeky side to him that you might not expect.

Ken, Matt, John, and Russ chat about the “Hop” press junket and how to cook a perfect steak in a cooler. Enjoy!

Special thanks to our sponsor Maphook, the location-based social network for geeks!

GeekDad.com is the parenting blog at Wired.com, edited by Ken Denmead, Matt Blum, Jonathan Liu and Chris Anderson. It is a community of like-minded geeky parents writing about our experiences raising our kids in the digital age, and about our obsessions with technology, family-friendly projects, and pop-culture. The GeekDads podcast is a bi-weekly discussion of anything and everything that impacts us as geeks and parents.